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Thursday, June 21, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #206: Juvenile Delinquents

Hello
there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you
share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Juvenile Delinquents

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Unfortunately, I couldn't find any that I actually love. These were all just ok.Thirteen (2003)Thirteen year old girls get out control with drugs, sex, and petty crime. I know this movie is supposedly loosely based on Nikki Reed's experience, still I thought the movie was trying a little too hard to shock us with what these kids were up to.

Charlie Bartlett (2007)

A rich kid starts playing the psychiatrist at his high school; listening to his classmates problems and selling them prescription drugs. I really wanted to like this. It's not bad, but not great either.

The Bling Ring (2013)

Inspired by true events of teens robbing celebrity homes. Hard to like since I found the actual story sort of annoying. Do we really need to give more air time to these shallow spoiled kids...there was already a TV movie 2 years before and this one didn't seem to add much to it.

Charlie Bartlett was a little of disappointment. I sort of expected it to be something like Ferris Bueller, that's what I got from the posters and things, anyway of course it didn't live up to that expectation.

I haven't seen Bling Ring yet but agree that Charlie Bartlett was just okay. I hated Thirteen with a passion.

I reached back to the beginnings of the juvie film genre too when they flooded the drive-ins after the success of Rebel Without a Cause (though one predates that) and an extra that takes a more thoughtful view of the situation.

Youth Runs Wild (1944)-While Mom and Dad are busy at the production plants making the tools to win WWII the kids are home and being neglected and the first thing you know “Youth Runs Wild!!!!” Horror meister Val Lewton (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) produced, though disavowed this studio reworked version, this mild teen rebellion film where the biggest sins are tire swiping and other minor infractions until a rather violent conclusion. Still somewhat surprising to see this type of film in the 40’s where young people were almost always presented as sweet, compliant angels.

High School Hellcats (1958)-Joyce (Yvonne Lime) is the new girl in school and on her first day she is confronted by Connie (Jana Lund) the leader of the Hellcat gang. Connie tells her she can join the gang or be ostracized and we’re off on a round of shoplifting, kissing parties and murder! Starts off as a mild little cautionary tale but considering there’s a body count it goes on a wilder ride than expected. The kind of film to be found at the local drive-in in the 50’s.

Look in Any Window (1961)-Teen idol Paul Anka plays “The Masked Prowler” a teen Peeping Tom who scales the fences of town residents wearing a frightening mask while his parents and their neighbors drink and carouse amongst themselves ignoring their children. Sensationalist with mostly over the top performances (though Ruth Roman is good as Anka’s mother) but Anka’s compulsion to voyeurism feels disturbingly prescient of an incipient serial killer or rapist.

The Young Stranger (1957)-Rebellious well to do teenager Hal (James MacArthur), a decent boy at heart, is arrested for punching a theatre manager at a movie theater which he truthfully claims was self-defense. The problems begin when Hal’s father (James Daly), an inattentive parent at best, doesn’t believe him leading to an even further estrangement and Hal acting out. Tom’s mother (Kim Hunter) tries to forge some sort of understanding between them before their hostility leads to worse issues. John Frankenheimer’s (The Manchurian Candidate) first theatrical film is an even handed account of the isolation and antipathy that often leads to juvenile delinquency.